xiv PIGS, CATTLE, OSTRICHES 143 



delicacy, even as is the oyster to the gourmet. 

 Curiously enough, so shrewd an observer as Mr. Stigand 

 comments in his book, "To Abyssinia through an 

 Unknown Land," on the peculiarity of finding an 

 ostrich recently killed by a lion, since it is extremely 

 rarely that they will touch them. Had he been an 

 ostrich breeder he would have found it far from 

 unusual. The length to which lions and leopards will 

 go to obtain a good tuck in among young ostriches is 

 extraordinary. Last year, two breeders completed an 

 ostrich enclosure which they felt was so secure that 

 they might rest happy in their beds. The boma was 

 perhaps 40 yards square, and consisted of huge posts 

 some 10 ft. high and was bound together by strands of 

 barbed wire within and without at intervals of three or 

 four inches. In all there were more than seven miles 

 of barbed wire around it. Outside, again, was a fence 

 of thorns, in itself almost impenetrable. Nevertheless, 

 the settlers' confidence was misplaced. One morning 

 they were roused with the unwelcome tidings that five 

 lions had visited the enclosure, had slain fifty odd out 

 of seventy ostriches contained therein, and had then 

 decamped — all save one, who was too swollen to retreat 

 through the gap by which he entered. The captive 

 dispatched, an inspection was made, and the fury with 

 which the lions had made their attack on the boma was 

 evidenced by the blood and fur strewn about. The 

 gap had been formed by literally tearing with teeth and 

 claws the wire from its supports and eventually forcing 

 open a narrow hole. Nor was this all. Next morning 

 the boy who brought the early tea remarked, "Tea, 

 sir, and another big lion in the boma ! " Running out 

 in pyjamas, another fine male was found unable to 

 locate the means of egress and was shot, which experi- 



